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[Aseaheru]

Get them closer.

Also, KerbalAI (or whatever it is called) works marginally better than MetchJeb for this sorta thing, but with one drawback.

You have to write programs for it.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I'm not a coder.

And do you mean fly the main rescue-ship closer? That can be done (though I might wait for daylight...)

[Aseaheru]

Dont really have to be a coder. Its relatively simple.

And yah, you need to fly closer. I think the range of the pipes is only about 30m.

[BFEL]

You REALLY need to learn how to rendezvous

[Rabid_Cog]

Why are you trying to do this one the surface? The rescue craft (not the rescue-rescue craft) has enough fuel to get to orbit at least. Meeting up in orbit is much less fuel intensive.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why are you trying to do this one the surface? The rescue craft (not the rescue-rescue craft) has enough fuel to get to orbit at least. Meeting up in orbit is much less fuel intensive.

Because I don't want to tempt KAS bugs. Also, I suck at microgravity EVA. If we tried that, we'd probably end up with one or both of our kerbals orbiting Minmus.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Alright. First off, I'd like to mention something. These daily updates are taking a few hours, or more, every night. My schedule is...well...I'm wasting enough time without daily updates, and I also am not doing anything else KSP. So, I'm thinking of reducing update speed. Specifically, after today and tomorrow, I'd be doing updates on weekends and Wednesdays. Anyone want to bring up issues with that or something?

First off, we're waiting for day. No more darkness landings, okay?


_{They have to wait a day, but that's not too bad overall. Better than crashing in the darkness.}

I lift off easily enough, then try adjusting my trajectory mid-flight before giving up and using a maneuver node.


_{Not using maneuver nodes is for experienced folks who have patience and fuel to burn.}

On the way there, I figure out something neat.


_{It's not much, but it's a thing!}

We watch Minmus roll by.


_{Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope that soon we can leave you behind forever. Or at least for a while.}

We wait and wait...


_{Two of a kind, those two. Less than a minute from making an important burn that we're not even sure how long it needs to be, and they're telling jokes.}

It turns out to be a very short burn indeed. We're still overshooting a little, so a little retrograde burn later and...


_{Good as we're going to get.}

There. We're a few minutes form impact, so quicksave time. Quicksave again at 5,000 meters above the surface.
I burn roughly retrograde, trying to push the retrograde marker more or less over the away-from-target marker. I succeed, quicksave, and point retrograde. Three kilometers up, I kill vertical velocity and quicksave. The part of my maneuver where I went up and MechJeb chased the retrograde vector threw me off my straight-towards-the-target path, so I need to fix that. I do, more or less. I keep trying, at least, but gravity keeps throwing me off. I keep my descent slow(ish), but discover to my horror that I've been burning the wrong retrograde marker around! I think. Probably. I try to point the craft retrograde; it slowly works. I determine that it's stuck to pointing to the wrong retrograde, so I start controlling this manually. Eventually, I start drifting more or less towards the target. I burn too much once, and then stop doing it. I'll never make it down at this rate.
I warp to about a kilometer above the ground and kill my fall. I warp to 500 meters and kill my fall. I figure out where my target marker is and burn a bit up, a bit towards that. Mostly up, though. Same a bit later, and again just 50 meters off the ground. And 25. And 10. And then the game freezes as things explode.


_{This falls under "litho breaking all my hardware".}

I reload, and extend my landing gear. However, I saved far too close to the surface. I burn next time I reload, then extend landing legs, then note that I'm apparently heading right at my target (retroactively intentional), then maneuver myself more retrograde. I slow myself carefully. Landing is good; we tilt onto those solar panels extended earlier, but remarkably they don't break and instead we bounce back. I retract the panels and order MechJeb to pull us upright. Now, where is that refueler...


_{...If I was any worse at landing, I probably couldn't hit Kerbin.}

Luckily, we're pointing roughly towards them, so if we just burn a bit...we can start turning way more upright than intended, right MechJeb. I turn on the Translatron to not crash, then begin maneuvering towards the refueler. Slowly. We get a nice horizontal speed of 25 m/s going. We won't have enough fuel to keep this up, so I increase it to 30 m/s, then notice that I'm less than 400 meters away and I start turning around. We zoom right past, coming within just over 100 meters before blowing past.

You know what? I'm sick of this mission. I just pretend this all worked out and...I hate to admit it, but I refuel the ship with cheats. The place I chose to take off from meant that almost any Minmal escape burn would be a Kerbal escape burn, and we don't want that. Anyways. Point to the node, warp to the node, burn the node. They warp to escape, and what the hell?


_{...
Oh, did I mention that it said the escape would be hundreds of days away?}

Screw it. I teleport to Kerbin, bring the periapsis down to 40 kilometers, ditch most of the ship, and wait to see how the heat shield does.


_{It's dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. Er, kraken.}

We pass into the sun about when we pass into the atmosphere.


<sub>Good. I hate landing blind.

I swear, they're almost like twins. Their shifts in expressions are practically in sync...well, ones a second or two behind the other, but that just makes it creepier!</sub>

I wait, apprehensively. This is my first landing with Deadly Reentry.


_{I hope this heat shield is more shielding than it looks. And that it's a heat shield.}

50,000 meters. Apoapsis has dropped to two kilometers above the atmosphere; we're not likely to leave. Periapsis has dropped around seven kilometers; we might hit that. I'm not sure.


_{You know, the zillionth time you re-enter, the planet just isn't the way it used to be. Or maybe that's just the screwup'd rescue mission talking.}

45,000 meters. Periapsis around 19 kilometers, we'll probably never reach it. Boredly waiting for re-entry shock heating. We're already decelerating at 0.1 m/s², but we've got over 2.3 km/s to burn off, so we'll probably still be going fast once we hit the middle atmosphere. I just hope my guessumptions about the heat shield are right...
Quicksaving at 39,000 meters. Dunno why, what can I change if I burn up? Decelerating a bit faster, maybe 2 m/s². Still going over 2.2 km/s, though.
34,000 meters. Dipped below 2 km/s. Shock heating might not be quite as bad.
32,000 meters. About 1.9 km/s. I'm not getting the re-entry effects I expected. Huh.
31,000 meters. There they are.


_{I don't think those solar panels are gonna make it.}

Finally, sound! Now, let's check on those panels and such...


<sub>It was -1 right before I screenshotted and -3 right after. I...I don't think I need to check the other parts. But I will.

Temperature rising. Huh.

I'm starting to suspect that isn't a heat shield.

...Well, it's working well enough.</sub>

A parachute is overheating; I turn more retrograde and it cools down. We're bleeding off speed fast now; maybe we can avoid issues.
Soon enough, we lose re-entry effects. Still going almost a kilometer per second, though. I try turning vertical to slow down more (we're still going mostly horizontal), and we get mach effects. Neato.
10,000 meters. 400 m/s. Mostly horizontal.
9,000 meters. 340 m/s. About 45-55 vert-horiz.
7,000 meters. 266.6 m/s, which is neat. Maybe 60-40 v-h.
5,000 meters. What the...


_{...Dammit, how did I break Kerbin? The funny thing is, there's a line--one side there's the textures, the other side...this.}

I'll...ignore that for now.

3,000 meters. Deploying chutes.


<sub>What the kraken is going on? Geez, we were likely to be eaten by one...I didn't even realize this would happen when I said that...

Is...is that the Mun?!?</sub>

A thousand meters up. That...thing is still looming large. 75 m/s, almost all vertical. I hear the heat shield splash, so...there's probably water...
After the parachutes deploy, I spin. It seems that the...thing...is roughly circular, and that we're in the middle of it. I notice something else odd...


_{That's like a second horizon...}

100 meters. 3 m/s.
We splash. I recover the vessel. WE'RE DONE! +289 Science.
Archibald brings with him knowledge of a Kommune tool-retrieval unit. We still have 311 Science to spend on stuff.

• Advanced Electrics (160 Science): Radial batteries and some new solar panels.
• Advanced Exploration (160 Science): Barometer, ladders.
• Advanced Landing (160 Science): Drogue chute, larger landing legs.
• Advanced MetalWorks (300 Science): Jr. docking ports, a heavy kethane drilling unit, stack separators, winches, quad-couplers.
• Heavier Rocketry (160 Science): Bigger kethane storage containers, the Mainsail and Jumbo fuel tanks, and what I think is the smallest of the ARM rockets.
• High-Altitude Flight (300 Science): ChemKorp Mystery Goo lights, KSO parts, ram intakes, turbojets, small hardpoints. Speaking of which, aren't you supposed to be able to put things on hardpoints? I never figured out how.
• Precision Engineering (160 Science): Small engines and tanks.
• Specialized Construction (160 Science): Hitchhiker-storage containers, docking ports, KAS Container Type A, assorted structural parts.
• Specialized Control (160 Science): A lander-can, a three-Kerbal-holding cockpit, assorted heat shields, large reaction wheels, large parachutes, radial monopropellant tanks that are easily-confused with mystery goo, and linear RCS ports.
• Supersonic Flight (160 Science): New air intakes and wings, plus a bunch of parts for the KSO shuttle. Oh, and Mk. 2 fuselages, which look to be more heat-resistant.

We have almost enough for two of the cheaper techs, or just over enough for one of the more expensive ones.

Jeb is shaken by recent experiences and does not comment, but he probably wants Heavier Rocketry. Bill wants Precision Engineering so we can send more drones out. Bob supports more development of spaceplanes, and hence suggests Supersonic Flight.
Director GreatWyrmGold suggests that we look into kethane use, so craft can refuel on other worlds, letting us avoid...issues...like these.

[SOLDIER First]

Advanced Metal Works, so we can eventually get magnets probably and replace tricky docking in the future with just latching on and pulling ships wih us.

[BFEL]

Advanced Metal Works, so we can eventually get magnets probably and replace tricky docking in the future with just latching on and pulling ships wih us.

Docking? Forget docking, GWG isn't even at the "get these two craft within physics load distance of each other" yet. I mean, HE HAD TO CHEAT HIS WAY OFF OF MINMUS FOR KRAKENSAKE!

[GreatWyrmGold]

Technically, I could have flown back from Minmus. It's just that I somehow wound up back in Minmal influence, and by then I was sick of this whole mission.

[MarcAFK]

radial monopropellant tanks that are easily-confused with mystery goo

Chuckle.
But, yeah, I vote for the kethane stuff, Try setting up a Kethane refinery on Minmus, er well, maybe try the Mun instead :p

[Aseaheru]

Kethane!

[GreatWyrmGold]

radial monopropellant tanks that are easily-confused with mystery goo

Chuckle.

Distinguishes it from the other radial monoprop tanks, doesn't it?

Oh, and by the way, I mis-calculated; we have enough for two of the cheaper techs or one of the more expensive ones.

[WillowLuman]

I think we should try to get those new Holyshithuge engines, they will make things much easier.

[Pnx]

I technique I recommend for landing on non-atmospheric objects is to put yourself in a very low circular orbit (you know how to circularise your orbit right? You point yourself retrograde at the periapsis and blow), then kill your horizontal velocity (something I usually do with maneuver nodes). It removes a lot of the guesswork from landing when you're eye-balling it.